SC to hear French woman's plea challenging re-arrest

The Supreme Court will hear on Friday a plea by a French national Marie-Emmanue Vehroeven for her release from custody she was again taken in even after a court quashed her extradition to Chile which wanted her for her alleged role in killing of its senator Jamia Guzmann in 1991.

A bench of Justice T.S.Thakur and Justice Kurian Joseph said that Vehroeven's petition would be taken up for hearing on Friday (October 9) when it is listed before the bench of Justice Joseph and Justice Arun Mishra.

Senior counsel T.R.Andhyarijuna in a mentioning told the court that despite the September 21 Delhi High Court order quashing her extradition, Vehroeven was re-arrested on September 22 and sent to judicial custody on September 23.

Describing her re-arrest despite the high court order as "extra-ordinary", he in response to a query from the court said that charge against her is that she was in conspiracy with some body to kill Guzmann.

Vehroeven came to India as a Buddhist pilgrim and she was a psychologist by profession, Andhyarijuna told the court in response to query on her antecedents.

"Let it come up on Friday" the court said as Andhyarijuna told the court that in normal course the matter is listed for hearing on Friday before the bench of Justice Kurian and Justice Mishra.

Assailing the order of the additional chief metropolitan magistrate allowing her "provisional arrest", Vehroeven's petition said that ACMM had "seriously erred" in ordering her "provisional arrest" on the basis of a mere note verbale issued by the Chilean Embassy on September 21, even though there was no proper arrest warrant against her by the Court of Appeal of Chile.

She has further contended that the Note Verbale, which was the basis of her provisional arrest could "never constitute an aurgent request from a foreign state" so as to justify the arrest.

Advocate Ramni Taneja, who assisted Andhyarijuna, said that though the high court had quashed the order of extradition, she was never released from Tihar Jail where she was lodged.

Vehroeven was arrested in February this year.